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Due to the new GDPR regulations I've sent everyone on our mailing list an email asking them to let us know if they still want to receive our mailing list. (Because GDPR requires organizations to have logs of the consent being given.)

This also means that as of tomorrow I will be deleting all email addresses that I do not have consent for. So if you didn't send me a message, you will be removed from the mailing list. Of course I will be happy to add you back to the list whenever you send me an email. Just send the email to duchess@jduchess.org.

This year I'm one of the organisers of the Joy of Coding conference. It's a small conference in Rotterdam to celebrate, as the title says, the joy of coding. We have invited 8 great speakers to talk about their passion. This conference is for all developers, regardless of the language they program in.

There is a call for papers for a session that we'll fill with lightning talks to help out new speakers to get some practice in. So if you're quick you can still submit! There will also be speedmeeting sessions to get to know some of the other people at the conference. AND there is a somewhat alternative workshop that you can try out at any time during the day! (The subject of which is still a bit of a secret, but there is a hidden hint that can be found on the website.)

Devoxx UK returns to London May 11th & 12th, 2017. We want you, the developer community, to help make it amazing again. The Call for Papers is open and we want to share valuable knowledge and precious experiences, making everyone better informed.

Do you have any insights and ideas for sessions? You can check our youtube channel and see the talks given last year for inspiration.

Talks can be in the form of a Conference Session (a 50-minute in-depth talk), a 2-hour Hands-on Lab, evening BOFs or 15-minute Quickie sessions.If you are new to public speaking and don’t want to dive straight into a main conference talk, lunchtime Quickies are a great option. Alternatively, consider pairing up with a colleague and giving a joint presentation.

But I Haven't Done a Conference Talk Before

If you have a great idea for a conference talk, but haven't given one before, sign up for the New Speaker Mentoring program. We will pair you up with an experienced speaker, who will advise you on your proposal before you submit it.

If your proposal is accepted, they will dedicate time to you every month, and in the crucial run up to the conference. Their role will be to advise you, give you valuable feedback and hear previews of your talk before you present it. They will also be on hand just before your talk, and during it so you will have a friendly face in the audience.

You can add your name to the New Speaker Mentoring program by registering here.

Then spread some Christmas cheer to our Program Committee by submitting a talk. Send some of your insights, hopes and dreams our way.

Buddy up

As well as submitting a proposal for a talk, you can join the Buddies Program. Brain child of Java Champion Linda van der Pal, this aims to pair up new conference attendees with more experienced attendees. Whether you are a Devoxx expert or novice, why not share your time and help to truly enrich the conference experience.

I just received a message from Peter Kopfler who is organising the Global Day of Code Retreat in Vienna. He would love to have a female facilitator for the 22 of October. Sadly I can't go myself, as my October and November months are filled to the brim already. He mentioned that his sponsor would help cover expenses, so if you are interested you can contact us.

This year at Devoxx UK, I organized the buddy program. This program was intended to introduce people who didn’t know anybody at the conference to some other people, to make the times between the sessions (lunch, evenings, etc.) a bit more enjoyable. My hopes are that this program will make conferences more diverse, by appealing to people who might not come exactly _because_ they don’t know anybody there.

Initially it looked as if we would have nine people, but there was a surge at the last minute, adding another seven participants. So there were sixteen participants in total, of which four were speakers. About half of them had never been to Devoxx UK before. All of the feedback I got was positive, people really liked sharing their experiences with each other.

Of course, as this was the first time I tried this, there were a lot of lessons to be learned.

1. Announce the program in the keynote

As I was listening to the introductory keynote, I realized I hadn't asked the organization to mention the program. This could have helped the program to reach more people. Next year we'll have to make more of a fuss about the program in general, as many people never heard of it, despite it being mentioned in the newsletter and the link on the site. So if you were in the program, please blog or tweet about your experiences!

2. Have the registration desk/meetup point set up in advance

I wasn't around for setup, so I could only arrange for a table after the attendees were inside already. And with everybody coming in at once, the organization had no time to spare to help arrange such things. (Mind you they were very helpful, just also extremely busy.)

3. Prepare signage in advance

Once again, the organization was very busy. And I could have easily prepared all this at home. And with more signs, hanging all over the place before people even enter, I think I might have pulled off what I really had in mind: an actual registration desk. The round table was a nice meeting point, but so few people had heard of the program, that it didn't feel worth my time to hang around there at all times to hook people up.

4. Have an official meet and greet

It would have been nice if we could have all participants meet up with each other before the conference. I even heard the idea of doing speed dating to get people to know each other. So maybe next year we can do some pre-conference activity.

5. Monitor registration on-site

I got four more registrations during the first day, but as I'm usually offline during conferences, I didn't see them until the next morning. So either I should stay online to monitor them, or I should make sure the online registration is closed as if the night before the conference.

6. Have info boards

I had intended there to be boards where people could share information about dinner, meeting up, taxi rides to the airport and the like. I tried to put up static notes on the wall behind the meeting point, but they were not visible enough and therefore not used.

Some other ideas that were mentioned during my session were to make the buddies more visible (stickers on the badge?), or even to add them to Huntly. The list of questions should be shorter, I cash probably make do with just name, contact details, conference experience and interest in tracks. In the end I didn't use the other data, as there were so few participants. It was also suggested that there might be a checks on the general Devoxx registration form to indicate being a first-timer, which would result in extra information about the buddy program being shown.

And finally, during the workshops the last day, we realized that having such workshops at the beginning (and in particular those like the one about retrospectives) as they help to introduce you to your fellow participants.

All in all, I thought the program was a success, despite being so much smaller than I'd hoped for. And I would love to do this again. So if you are a conference organizer and would like this at your own event, feel free to contact me! Even when I can't make it to your conference, we can certainly talk about getting this on the rails! I'd love to see this becoming a default aspect of all conferences. (And there's no way I can actually visit all conferences myself, sadly.)

So all our incessant nagging has paid off, and you are considering becoming a public speaker. You'd really like to give a talk at that one great conference, but you really have no clue what to talk about. Don't worry, this is pretty common, and it's bugged us quite a few times as well. There has been many an event that I didn't submit anything for, despite planning to attend (and wishing I did have something I could submit). But today I've found this great article that I think can help us all:

This is a checklist of questions that prompt you to come up with good ideas. So my advice will be to download that list, print it and hang it in a visible space. Then any time another CFP comes by that makes you wish you had a talk to give, spend the requested 30 minutes to come up with something. And remember, we're always willing to help you finetune your idea if you drop us an email!

Last year at JFall I gave an ignite talk about Sketchnoting. It wasn't until after the conference that I realized I had been the only female speaker at the event. 5 minutes of presentation by a woman at a conference with about 40 hours worth of content. Knowing very well that this was no deliberate discrimination by the organizers, I determined to do something about it. So this year I have joined the program committee and have set myself the goal of 10% female speakers. I counted 55 names on the program last year, so that would amount to only 5 or 6 female speakers. Surely that should be attainable.

So help me reach my goal by flooding the CFP with proposals this year, as soon as it opens. It's supposed to open on the 16th of June, so I'm giving you a head start to think about your subjects.

Some things to keep in mind:

Entry level presentations are perfectly fine. Lots of people have never started with that one technology you have worked with.

Feel free to submit several talks. If you only want to give one talk, just let me know, and I'll make sure the rest of the committee knows as well.

Talking in front of a crowd is scary, but you have to know that the audience wants you to succeed. They have come to learn, not to gloat about your incompetence. Just think about yourself for a second when you visit a conference, you didn't come to gloat either, did you? Most people are there for the same reasons. :)

You can always submit a talk together with somebody else. In that case you can back each other up.

There will be several different formats of talks from an ignite talk to a hands on lab so maybe a shorter talk will suite your topic more. (But beware that the ignite talk is in my opinion the hardest format of all, despite it's short length!)

Talks at jFall are both in Dutch and English so feel free to select the language you are most comfortable with.

Drop us a line if you want some help with your proposal or want to practice your talk in front of a small group.

Even if you’ve been attending developer conferences for years, sometimes they can just feel like lonely places.

If you’re attending Devoxx UK this year and don’t know anyone else coming, but do know that you’ll want share your experience with others, there’s a solution.

Long time Devoxx attendee, Java Champion and JDuchess founder Linda van der Pal has stepped up to the plate to conceive and coordinate the Devoxx Buddies Program.

We’ll match you with two or three other people with similar interests. Together, you can discuss the sessions you’ve seen, grab a drink (if that’s what you enjoy), have dinner, and ultimately get so much more out of the conference experience than you would on your own.

The plan is to match up all Buddies groups with at least one person who has been to Devoxx UK before. There will be an information desk at the event where you can find and leave information on what your dinner and other social plans are. It’s also possible to switch in and out of groups to help you meet as many people as possible.

Even if you know a heap of people coming to the event already, you can still sign-up to meet new people and help share the Devoxx experience more. Maybe you can introduce others to all the people you already know, can tell them where and when to get the best food or coffee, or where the best restaurants in town are. Or perhaps you could be a mentor for less experienced conference goers and first-time attendees.

We’re ready and waiting to help create the best conference experience we can. Why not join us?

Today I decided to try out the blogging functionality of Liferay. So here it is, our shiny new blog. If you want to write blogposts for this site as well, just drop me an email, and I'll create a user account for you. (And if you already have an account, just log in and add a post!)